optiver | Software Engineer | Interview Experience
Interview Date: Not specified
Result: Not specified
Difficulty: Not specified
Interview Process
The interview lasted 70 minutes and consisted of four problems that the candidate was required to solve.
Technical Questions
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Monotonic Triples
You are given an array of integers. For each set of three consecutive elements, determine whether they are strictly monotonic (either strictly increasing or strictly decreasing). Return an array of length n - 2 where each element is:- 1 if the triple is strictly increasing or strictly decreasing,
- 0 otherwise.
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Tide Peaks
A tide station records water levels across n days. A day is called a peak day if there is no future day with a strictly higher tide level. Given an array of tide levels, return the number of peak days. -
Stock Car Elimination
In a stock car race, lap data is given as a 2D array of strings. Each entry is “DriverName Time”. After each lap, update each driver’s best lap time so far (minimum time). Eliminate the driver(s) with the worst best time (largest value). If multiple drivers are tied for worst, eliminate all of them simultaneously (order alphabetically). Continue until one driver remains. Return the full elimination order, ending with the winner. -
Trading Bot with Forced Sales
A trading bot follows a daily algorithm where each day is marked as:- 0 → buy at that day’s price,
- 1 → sell at that day’s price.
Your revenue is the sum of sales minus the sum of buys. You are allowed to choose one contiguous block of exactly k days and force the bot to sell on all those days (regardless of the original algorithm). Return the maximum possible revenue after applying this strategy.
Tips & Insights
Focus on understanding the problem requirements clearly and practice similar problems to enhance problem-solving skills. Time management during the interview is crucial.